US-China relations: American nuclear-capable stealth bombers deployed to Indian Ocean airbase
- Three B-2A Spirit bombers sent to Diego Garcia in British Indian Ocean Territory for the first time since 2016
- Aircraft’s presence designed to intimidate Beijing as it ramps up its live-fire military exercises
The American B-2A nuclear-capable Spirit bombers took off on Tuesday from the Whiteman air force base in Missouri, flew across northern Australia and on to the militarised atoll that forms part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The aircraft were refuelled in the air several times, according to information from the US military.
“The movement of air-based nuclear power is a demonstration of might,” said Zhao Tong, a senior fellow at the nuclear policy programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beijing.
“There doesn’t need to be a strike.”
Unlike submarines that are less visible, and land-based missiles, which are less mobile, strategic bombers, which can be deployed and withdrawn at will, are often used as a tool to intimidate an enemy.
